Cultural Immersion Experience

 

Cultural Immersion Experience

Some programs define cultural immersion as a matter of getting out of one’s room and expat environment and into the surrounding world (Jeffreys, 2010). Although these programs offer a wide range of learning outcomes, they can be limiting. The intangible perspective shift that people derive from a deeper and more critical cultural immersion experience includes learning about different culture, understanding better and empathizing with people from different culture, reflecting on, and becoming aware of attitudes and beliefs that one might have about a group that is different from one he/she belongs to. For the purpose of this assignment, I decided it will be interesting to visit a nursing home which later proved to be an eye-opening and interesting experience to me. This is because the visit at the nursing home made me understand how different I was from the hospital residents especially nurses. In fact, the manner in which I interacted with the nurses and how the residents related to me were different.

Purpose

Effective professional development is required to prepare learners to understand how to interact with people from different cultural background. Jeffreys (2010) feels that, although cultural awareness can also be achieved through training, effective cultural learning should contain experiences that are beyond what might be included in the learning process that entails the use of lectures. In most cases, when students learn through a direct experimental process, they gain a deeper understanding and reflection about the topic and/or concept (Jeffreys, 2010). Some studies affirm that, studying culture in its natural setting provides an individual with opportunities to fully experience diverse cultural issues. As such, I opted to study culture in its natural setting by spending time in a nursing home, studying residents’ interactions.

The Visit to a Nursing Home and Subsequent Experience

When I told my father that I was going to visit a nearby nursing home, he clasped his hands over his mouth and said “oh child! There are many people there from different cultural background!” Up on hearing my father’s concern, I became nervous about my intention to visit a nursing home and whether there were many people who are older than me. I had never heard experience with nursing homes and had a totally different attitude about the nursing homes. Nonetheless, I decided to visit the nursing home. At first, I was nervous when I walked through the door because I was not sure how the nurses could perceive me. After about 1 hour, the nurses started being habitable and eventually started laughing as we talked about stories and the experiences they encountered when they were my age. One of the nurses noted that it was a nice experience for an individual to be my age. This made me admire being the minority in such setting because I got an opportunity to understand on how things would be when I become as old as the nurses. All the nurses were nice to me and welcoming. In fact, from the look of things, the nurses looked excited to have me there and share with me.

At first, I thought young people are often placed into a nursing home setting. As such, I believed such little society (nursing home) often has young people who are being scrutinized by the nurses because of their age. Perhaps, the nurses do not understand why young person are in the nursing home. However, the moment the any one visiting realizes that the nurses mean no harm; one would relax and become part and parcel of the nursing fraternity. During my visit at the nursing home, I realize that my norms and values were different from theirs. Whereas the nurses’ norm was based on the fact that they depend on one another and always have someone clean–up after them, my norm differed from the nurses’ because I am always independent and conduct the clean up by myself.

Reflection

Reflecting on the above scenario, I do not think my father realized that his remark about my intension to visit the nursing home was oppressive to me. His remark implied that, people often draw conclusions ignorantly about others based limited cultural perspective (Carter, 2005). The comments from my father reflected what can be referred to as unexamined ideologies that shape commonly accepted values and ideas. Carter (2005) argues that, most people’s values, ideas, and beliefs are absorbed during childhood from family and/or community. As a matter of fact, people think of culture in-terms of their dress, language, or food. They are also reminded of the traditions that distinguish people as particular part of the society. Just like my father did, I thought that a nursing home was a totally different environment; quiet and oppressing. However, I realized that culture also includes our learned behavior patterns (Carter, 2005). That is, how an individual or classify others, distinguish between wrong and right, and teach other people or colleagues or peers certain expectations.

Mostly, people accept ideas and beliefs as principles that guided them into adulthood and helped them understand various issues in life. Larsen and Reif (2011) assert that, people have a set of expectations about the world around them that are based on formative childhood experience. Such experience continues to act as a filter that assists in understanding life. Such argument reflects both my expectations that nursing homes were always calm and probably disappointing, and my father’s expectations that visiting a nursing home was not a good idea because things are done differently in the nursing home compared to what is done at home. However, after interacting and speaking freely with the nurses, I gained a different insight on how things are done within a nursing home.

Moreover, assumptions based on limited cultural background that people understand and believe might also include stereotypes, distortions, prejudice, and unexamined or unquestioned beliefs (Larsen & Reif, 2011). Such assumptions are people’s way of perceiving the world based on their culture, background, and experience and are expressed as their perspective or points of view.

The visit to the nursing home enabled me to gain important insights about nursing culture. For instance, prior to the visit, I thought that nurses were very strict and I expected to meet unwelcoming people. However, contrary to presumptions which resulted from lack of exposure to broad culture, I realized that nurses are humbled and easily make people happy and interacts with people. For instance, it did not take long before we knew one another and started laughing and talking openly to each other. Nurses are nice and welcoming. This was further reflected in the fact that they all looked excited for my visit. Through talking openly with the nurses, I realized that, their culture was different from mine. For instance, the nurses dependent on one another and would always had someone clean up after them. This reflects Larsen and Reif (2011) argument that, although not all nursing actions are interdependent, most nurses act after mutual determination by the nurse and physic. This is different from my culture; for instance, despite that I am independent, I rarely have someone clean up after me. Moreover, prior to the visit I thought that a nursing home is very quiet and depressing. In fact, I was very nervous because I did not know how I could interact with other people. Contrary to my expectation, I came to learn that, a nursing home is a light and fun atmosphere.

Through the visit to the nursing home, I gained a better understanding of nurses and even empathized with them. In most cases, the values or beliefs that people have maintained throughout their lives are questioned (Zhao, Meyers, & Meyers, 2009). That was clearly the case in my experience of visiting a nursing home. I was frightened because of my limited experience with diversity and limited familiarity with the culture. This made me nervous when I walked around; I was not sure how the residents would perceive my presence. However, after I established relationship with nurses and other residents, I began to question some of my embedded assumptions. For instance, when the nurses started talking about their childhood experience, I realized that we shared a similar experience. Moreover, when the nurses started laughing and saying how nice it was to be young, I recognized the transformative process that had taken place. In other words, I realized that there had been a transformation between what I had earlier been conditioned to believe was right and true and my new set of values and beliefs that were more reflective and open.

Whenever people’s values and beliefs are challenged, they might choose to examine their beliefs and possibly adapt new mind’s habits, just as I initially thought a nursing home was depressing, but I as adapted the new thinking, I realized that, a nursing home is light and an appealing environment. Zhao, Meyers, and Meyers (2009) cite that, when people critically examine their habitual expectations, and act on the new point of view, transformative learning occurs. Ideally, this process transformed my taken-for-granted reference frames and made me more open, inclusive, emotionally capable of change, and reflective. This implies that, the new frames might generate opinions and beliefs that then proved more justified or true guide to action. Zhao, Meyers, and Meyers (2009) believed that, new experiences can act as a medium for the creation of new perspectives that transform how people think about themselves and the world around them; a shift that can change people’s way of viewing the world.

In addition, after visiting the nursing home, I got an opportunity to understand better and enjoyed being associated with nurses. Through sharing with nurses and listening to their experiences, I liked being the minority in this setting. Through sharing, the nurses helped me understand how things will be when I get to the nurses’ age. Such experience encouraged me to think about my own cultural perspective and recognize multiple perspectives together with cultural differences. For instance, I realized that, my values and norms are different from that for nurses.

Interacting with nurses provided me with an opportunity to become aware of attitudes and beliefs I had about nursing. After my experience, I put some sociological theories. One of these theories was the Ideal versus Real culture. For instance, my I perceived a nursing home to be a place that is calm and gloomy. However, after my real experience, I disapproved my misconception. Moreover, I received some insights regarding the nature versus nurture debate that made me conclude that, the nature part of nursing home is based on the perception that patients are aware they are not independent. On the other hand, the nurture part try give patients back their independence by assisting them.

In conclusion, this paper focused on cultural immersion. The cultural transformation that people derive from cultural immersion experience includes learning about a different culture, understanding better and empathizing with people from a different culture, reflecting on, and gaining more insights about attitudes and beliefs about people from different cultural background. Such aspects were reflected through a visit to a nursing home where, contrary to cultural beliefs prior to the visits, I realized that nursing profession or rather nurses are welcoming and exciting to interact with. The experience at the nursing home opened up my eyes and assisted by to have a broader understanding of nursing cultural background.

 

References

Carter, R. T. (2005). Handbook of racial-cultural psychology and counseling: Vol. 2. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley.

Jeffreys, M. R. (2010). Teaching cultural competence in nursing and health care: Inquiry, action, and innovation. New York: Springer Pub Co.

Larsen, R., & Reif, L. (2011). Effectiveness of cultural immersion and culture classes for enhancing nursing students’ transcultural self-efficacy. The Journal of nursing education, 50(6), 350.

Zhao, Y., Meyers, L., & Meyers, B. (2009). Cross-cultural immersion in China: Preparing pre-service elementary teachers to work with diverse student populations in the United States. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 37(3), 295-317.

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